New blank workbook (Author info, colour scheme)

[Vinod]

Hi,

I found a bewildering three locations for Book.XLT on my system:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10"
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\XLStart"
"C:\Documents and Settings\vnagubadi\Application
Data\Microsoft\Templates"

I edited the Properties/Summary/Author field of each of these Book.XLT
files to indicate their file location. That way, when I created a 'New
Workbook', I could quickly and easily identify which template Excel
was using to generate the new file. I was ready to run some tests.
(These are all in Excel XP (2002), btw)

Scenario A

When I use the 'New' Blank Workbook icon on the Standard toolbar, the
template used is located in the "C:\Program Files\Microsoft
Office\Office10\XLStart" directory.

Scenario B

When I go to the 'File' menu, select 'New...', then select 'Blank
Workbook' from the New area of the New Workbook task pane window, I am
dumbfounded. The workbook is created from some unknown template. The
Author information displayed is not from the three Book.XLT templates
I found when searching my C drive. It seems to be a completely archaic
template; one that comes with a default installation of Excel. I was
unsuccessful in locating it.

When I deploy the new Book.XLT template, I will tell our IT department
to put it in the

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\XLStart

folder of each user's system.

However, if a user decides to take it upon him/herself to create a New
Workbook by using the method described in Scenario B, how can I ensure
that his new workbook comes with the color palette and author
information I enclosed in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft
Office\Office10\XLStart\Book.XLT file?

Thanks in advance,

Vinod


Hi Vinod,

Testing, I opened Book.XLT, changed the author name and saved it to
its
original location.

On my system, subsquent new workbooks all show the amended author
details

Are you sure that your user is not looking at a workbook that was set
up
prior to your change of author?

 

[Dave Peterson]

I don't think you can make sure with scenario B.

Maybe you could delete that option from the menu and tell the users to click on
the icon on the standard toolbar.

You may want to reconsider your deployment of Book.xlt. Is it ok with you if
someone overwrote your book.xlt file with their version?

If you store the template workbook in the TemplatesPath (with a nice name), it
might be less destructive.

And if that's not a consideration, I'd look at
application.startuppath
to find the "Real" XLStart folder.

You may want to look at the way Jan Karel Pieterse used a helper workbook that
added an addin in his namemanager utility.

You can find it at:
NameManager.Zip from http://www.bmsltd.ie/mvp/

He has an installation workbook included in the zip file. You'll want to point
it to the correct location, but if you distribute both the "installer" and the
template, it should go very well.

===

And keep a copy of the name manager for your own use! It's very nice.